HARMONY VR
The world you enter is entirely dark…You fill it with light by following the harmonious tones you hear in the space all around you!
A first-person view of an experimental VR experience where the user enters a world filled with darkness. The piece focuses upon 3d, spatial audio, and an emissive light drops behind every movement the user makes, allowing the user to see where they have progressed in their journey.
There is no right or wrong way to experience the piece, playfully fill the world with light and sound — however, if the user keys in on the musical tones, and in time realizes that if they find the loudest points and follow the harmony, it is actually a path leading them out of the darkness.
Created in Unreal Engine and built for the HTC Vive.
INSPIRATION
If I wanted users to journey through an experience, and guide them to a desired outcome - without any visuals, prompts, or rules provided upfront! - how could I do it?
How could I use sensory cues throughout the environment to have them interact with this world and lead them through it?
THE PROCESS
Direction and creative vision
For this experience to have the suspenseful impact I desired, it would be really important that the maze be difficult to navigate - so I turned to Maya3D to build a unique structure:
I then brought the maze from Maya3D into Unreal Engine to create the experience. After making and applying polished materials to the walls of the structure, I added some color and spotlights in strategic placements to provide some differentiation to the maze walls’ presence. And with inciting fear being a priority, I made the environment pitch black:
Desiring to add visibility with a sense of awe that one couldn’t encounter in real world environments, I created an emissive element:
And built an emissive path that highlighted wonder and separation…and the importance of each step!
In addition, the emissive path would provide an immediate indicator that this is either some technologically futuristic or entirely alternate world to set expectations that this reality might not play by previously learned rules for settings - adding to the suspense.
I then added fire animations to dial up the terror:
In the essential final aspect of the project, I worked on a VR Pawn for the player in a n Oculus headset to be able to possess control of a “camera” (their first-person view within the headset) in the scene, and be able to move through the environment in Unreal as they moved within the headset in actual reality:
First-person views:
